Trump is making Americans richer by the day – and he isn’t even President but: ALEX BRUMMER

The second coming of Trump horrifies many East and West Coast US liberals.

Yet when older Americans examine their retirement investment portfolio, and Generation Z and millennials review gains made on the Robin Hood share

platforms, they cannot but have conflicted feelings.

Donald Trump’s alliance with fellow travelling conservative Elon Musk, embrace of deregulation and choice of laissez faire, anti-regulation hedge fund managers to key economic posts is making ordinary Americans richer.

The possibility that his tariff agenda may eventually be embraced could make US citizens and the country poorer.

Trade wars will raise the cost of living (barriers are a tax on imported goods) and fragment an already distorted global trading system. 

Business boost: Even before his arrival in the White House Time magazine has named the President-elect ‘Person of the Year’ for his ‘once in a generation political realignment’

Time magazine has named the President-elect ‘Person of the Year’ for his ‘once-in-a-generation political realignment’. Time might have added economic and financial realignment to the citation.

Choices such as macro hedge fund guru Scott Bessent, nominated to lead the US Treasury, and Andrew Ferguson, to head the anti-trust Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where he has dissented on actions against big tech, delighted Silicon Valley.

British investors have had something to cheer, too. A preference of UK fund managers for Wall Street over the Square Mile is hugely disappointing for FTSE 350 investors but has done wonders for those tracking S&P 500 and Nasdaq. 

It is no accident that in the hours after Ferguson was picked, the tech-dominated Nasdaq soared to a record 20,000 on Wednesday.

There was a sigh of relief from Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple – all have been under intense scrutiny from departing FTC boss Lina Khan.

Even though Trump is no fan of Big Tech, – bar Musk – there is a belief the upcoming anti-trust court case against Google, demanding the potential disinvestment of its Chrome search engine, will fizzle out.

It IS no surprise that Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook and WhatsApp, have been among the biggest winners.

Trump’s pick of Musk as ‘efficiency adviser’ is paying rich dividends.

Forbes magazine, in its latest billionaires list, records that the value of Musk’s enterprises soared 71 per cent in 2024 to $440billion (£345billion) – making him considerably richer than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 

The value of pioneering EV maker Tesla stumbled earlier in 2024. But the shares were $419 last night, not far off their record high of £434. As for his rocket and satellite innovator SpaceX, it is now worth an astonishing £280billion.

The £200million which Musk spent helping Trump to win the election is proving cash amazingly well spent.

The $64billion question is to ask whether the Trump-Musk rally has run its course?

So far Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell has not yet chosen to emulate a predecessor, Alan Greenspan.

At the height of the dot.com bubble in 1996, Greenspan expressed concern about ‘irrational exuberance’. It took another four years for that bubble to burst.

But there must be a worry that sticky inflation, Trump tariffs and America’s public debt overhang will take its toll.

Earlier this week, the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, warned that soaring amount of global government borrowing risks destabilising the financial system. It may soon be time to fasten the seatbelts.